


On Fire

by RowboatCop



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Aphrodisiacs, Coulson and his ridiculous crush on Skye, Day 1, F/M, I promise, Inhuman Biology, Masturbation, Oral Sex, Pon Farr, Public Sex, Sex Cliches, Sex Pollen, Skye's powers used during sex, Truth Serum, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Vaginal Fingering, because it's the nature of the tropes, but very minimally so, dub con, skoulsonfest2k15redux, skye's powers, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-29
Updated: 2015-08-13
Packaged: 2018-04-11 22:18:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4454471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RowboatCop/pseuds/RowboatCop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or, three times Skye and Coulson angst through some sex cliches, and one time they have fun with it</p><p>For Skoulsonfest2k15 Redux Day 1: Inhuman Biology</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sex Pollen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skye & Coulson & Sex Pollen

“Coulson!” She rushes at him as something grenade-like falls from the sky, and he wants to yell at her for running into danger instead of away from it. But then, she wouldn’t be Skye if she didn’t run into danger.

She’s too late to deflect it, but on time to be next to him when it goes off and to get the full effect of the weapon. Except it isn’t an explosion.

Instead, it’s a spray of blue mist that seems to hang in the air for a moment before dispersing.

“Chemical weapon,” Skye immediately surmises, and he watches as she pulls out a plastic bag and saves the shell. Simmons or Lincoln or Fitz will hopefully be able to help identify what it was.

She’s so thorough, so thoughtful. It’s never occurred to him how much he admires the foresight that lead her to keep a pouch on her tactical suit just for sample bags.

Smart. She’s very smart. He likes that, how smart she is.

“Oookay,” Skye smiles at him, but it’s a strange smile, not her usual smile.

Skye has a gorgeous smile, usually, when it’s real and not nervous.

“Why don’t we get back to the jet, okay Coulson?”

It bothers him that she still calls him Coulson, that she doesn’t call him Phil.

“You asked me not to, remember?”

Years ago, though, that was years ago. And he never expected her to do it, never expected it to stick. She was supposed to start calling him _Phil_ again at some point.

At some point she was supposed to bring it up again, push against his boundaries.

“That’s not true,” she sighs. “Propriety matters to you, remember? You want me to call you the same thing everyone else does.”

Not when they’re alone, though. When they’re alone, he wants her to call him Phil. When they’re alone, he wants it to be different.

“Okay, Phil,” she sounds unsure as she says it, as she leads him up the ramp into the jet that’s been remotely piloted from back at the base. “Okay. Can you take off your jacket off for me?”

He does, that sounds good because he can feel sweat on the back of his neck and a hot flush creeping up his face, so he helps her as she slides it off his shoulders. With the heat on his neck, though, he then immediately loosens his tie, hands that off to her as well, and tugs his shirt out of his slacks. He’s good at this, at taking off his clothes. Buttons are finicky to do up, still, even with the new hand, but he’s good at this part.

“Whoa, there,” she stops him before he can shrug out of the shirt. Her hands are on his chest, between the open halves of his shirt on top of his undershirt, touching him through a layer of cotton instead of skin to skin.

He wants her skin against his, _needs_ her skin against his.

“Shit, Coulson,” she sighs, and for one fleeting beautiful perfect moment, her hand lands on the side of his neck, skin to skin, cool and soft and wonderful against him.

God, he loves it when she touches him. She _never_ touches him, never, it seems like he’s always the one touching her.

“That’s not true. I’m the one that always hugs you, remember?”

But that’s happened, what, a dozen times? He likes to put his hand on her shoulder, to touch her arm, but there are always too many clothes —

“Coulson,” she tries to call his attention, but he’s thinking about Skye _out of her clothes_.

“Phil.”

And _fuck_ he loves the way that sounds.

“Phil, sit down, okay?”

She pushes him towards one of the jump seats and he goes because he generally does whatever Skye tells him to.

“Stay here, okay? Can you do that for me?”

He can do whatever she needs him to, especially if she touches him again.

Her hand lands on the side of his face, wish fulfillment. It’s cool and soft, and Skye doesn’t have _delicate_ hands, nothing about Skye is delicate, but he enjoys the contrast of how soft her hands are compared to how much _power_ she has there.

God, she's so powerful.

He catches her fingers in his right hand and brings them to his lips, presses a kiss against her knuckles, the back of her hand, the top of her wrist.

“Coulson,” she whispers, and he can hear the arousal in her voice. Their eyes lock, and he can see it, too — she wants him, and the knowledge of him sweeps over him in a wave of heat.

Slowly, he turns her arm over, bit by bit, until he’s pressing his lips against the underside of her wrist, just beneath the long sleeve of her field suit.

“Oh, God,” she sighs, a beautiful little soft sound that he wants to hear again.

She shivers and leans closer, and he drags his nose up her inner arm, pushing up her sleeve as he lays kisses against the skin there. He feels so attuned to her, like he can feel her arousal in the beat of her pulse against his lips.

When he lays a hand against her hip, though, to encourage her closer, she pulls back. She pulls back even though her arm shakes as she drops it to her side, and he can still hear her pulse, hear how much she wants him.

“Maybe so,” she tells him as she takes another step back, “but not like this, okay?”

 _This_ seems perfectly fine to him, but he can wait. For a bed, maybe. That would be worth waiting for, to get Skye in his bed, spread out on his bed, to part her thighs and —

“Coulson,” she cuts off his train of thought, and she’s still so obviously aroused.

He just wishes she didn’t also look so scared.

“Just...stay put, okay?”

Then Skye vanishes into the cockpit, leaves him alone in the loading bay.

He can hear her talking to someone — radioing the base, then, probably remotely sending them a signature from her sample.

Coulson wipes his arm across the line of sweat on his brow and presses the back of his head against the wall behind him as he thinks about her, which is something he does a lot.

Thinking about Skye.

He’d really like for her to touch him again. If he took of his shirt it would feel good _and_ she might touch him skin on skin, but a voice in the back of his head says that if he takes off any more of his clothes, it might make Skye uncomfortable. And he doesn’t want to do that, never wants to make her uncomfortable.

Still, he can’t help but think about it, about how cool and soft her hands are, about how much he wants to feel them touching _everywhere_ on his body.

He runs his right hand down his stomach to his cock as he thinks about it — Skye’s hands on him, running down his belly, circling his cock.

Her cool soft skin on the hottest, hardest part of him.

He presses the heel of his hand against himself through his slacks and groans at the pressure, at the thought of Skye doing it, Skye touching him.

It’s something he usually doesn’t even let himself think about, and for a moment he wonders why it’s so easy right now, so easy to think about her this way.

The thought doesn’t stick around long, though, not when he can lick his lips and still taste her skin, not when he is rubbing himself through his slacks.

“Fuck, Coulson,” Skye sighs when she comes back in the room, and he wonders if she curses like that when she’s in bed.

That’s a very good question. What sounds would Skye make when she’s coming? Would it be different if she was coming around his fingers or against his tongue?

“Coulson,” she calls his name, calls him out of his questions, and he realizes that he shouldn’t touch his cock in front of her. He moves his hands, with some difficulty, to the arm rests on the side of the jump seat. He's still hot, though, still flushed with want and need and the knowledge — the certainty — that it would be better if he could just bury himself in her.

“How do you feel? Are you…?”

Hot. He feels hot, is all he can think. He’s never been so fucking hot.

“I’m sorry,” she shakes her head. “I’m so sorry.”

And there’s no reason for her to be sorry. It’s not her fault she doesn’t want him like he wants her, not her fault that he’s so fucking hot for her all the time. He understands, understands that she can be aroused sometimes but still not want him like that.

“Is that what you think?”

Which is when it occurs to him that Skye has developed mind reading powers today. Maybe that’s what the weapon did, turned her into a telepath.

He’ll have to be careful with his thoughts if Skye becomes a telepath.

“No,” she corrects him, drops into the seat next to his and takes his hand in hers, “you just have no filter between your brain and your mouth. And very elevated testosterone levels, according to Simmons.”

Her fingers are still cool, still feel amazing against his.

“But she said the sample is breaking down very quickly, which means it will probably be out of your system soon.”

“I’m drugged?”

It makes sense.

“Yeah, Coulson. You’re drugged.”

She sounds relieved, which is good. He hates it when she’s worried, when she’s scared, especially because most of the time there’s nothing he can do. She’s the one that saves him.

“You’ve saved me plenty.”

He smiles at her fondly, at how careful she always is not to make him feel unneeded, even when he’s drugged and difficult.

“Wait, why aren’t you drugged?”

She smiles at him like she’s so proud of him, like it makes her so happy that he asked.

“Simmons thinks that whatever it was came from an Inhuman faction, and that something in my DNA means I’m immune. She’s sending a sample to Lincoln for testing.”

Good that’s good. He’s glad she’s immune, that she’s not doing something she’ll regret later.

“You’re doing better, right?”

He nods, swallows.

“Yes.”

Not better enough, but better. Still hot, still _hard_.

“It’s okay,” she tells him. “It’s going to be okay”

And he believes her when she talks like that, when she holds his hand like that.

“Then we’ll stay like this,” she raises their clasped hands between them, “until you feel better.”

He tries to arrange his thoughts, to get a grip on himself. He definitely doesn’t need to say anything else about what else he wants from her, what else he wants to do to her, where else he wants to feel her hands.

“Did I say that out loud?”

“No?”

She’s smiling at him, a slightly wary smile, but not scared anymore.

“Good.”

He squeezes her hand and breathes.

“Simmons thinks that the intention of the weapon was probably to briefly elevate adrenaline and testosterone, and to cause short bursts of intense violence among humans,” she tells him, just talking to him like this is normal.

It helps.

“That was a miscalculation.”

“Yeah, but I much prefer this to having to knock you out.”

“The other would have been less embarrassing.”

“Hey, if you’re able to feel embarrassed, you must be doing better.”

She grins at him, and he rolls his eyes.

“What a relief,” he manages to quip sarcastically.

He swallows, suddenly aware of how thirsty he is.

“Do you need some water?”

Coulson nods, but has a hard time relinquishing Skye’s hand because he’s starting to feel more like himself, which means she’ll stop holding it.

Which is a good thing.

For some reason.

She comes back with a bottle of water that he downs almost too quickly, suddenly parched as his body cools down.

“Are you okay?” He asks her because he’s not sure how else to phrase the question, of whether he’s totally ruined things between them today.

“Of course I am,” she responds, like nothing has happened here to make her uncomfortable at all.

Which is good, he guesses.

As his brain comes back online, he struggles through the questions of how to behave, how to relate to her, now.

On the one hand, he’s an Agent of SHIELD and he knows that most of his behavior today was not his fault — he won’t feel guilty over something he couldn’t control. On the other, the thought of making Skye uncomfortable, of making Skye feel pressured or even _aware_ of his feelings for her is one of his worst nightmares.

He’d like to run and lock himself in another room, honestly. To lock himself up until Skye forgets all of this.

But practicality wins out, partly because he knows that they’ll never get things back to normal if he runs from her, if he makes her feel like she should force the issue.

When she reaches for his hand again, though, he pulls back, wants her to know in no uncertain terms that she’s not required to touch him, to comfort him.

For a half a second she frowns, and then she smiles at him.

“May is ready to get us back to base.”

And things go back to normal.

 


	2. It's Not Pon Farr

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coulson & Skye & (Not) Pon Farr & Angst

It’s not a situation he ever thought he’d be dealing with, and that’s saying a lot because he’s a risk assessment guy — that’s what he does. He plans for risks and potential situations that others  might not think about.

Simmons calls him into the infirmary almost immediately after he returns from a meeting with Talbot, where he finds Lincoln on a gurney. Skye, he’s told, is in the vibranium cell down the hall.

His first instinct is to leave the infirmary and go to Skye, who should never be put in a _cell_ , and Simmons has to almost drag him to Lincoln first. The kid is in bad shape — a killer black eye, split lip, broken arm strapped across his body. It’s pretty clear that Skye punched him in the face and then threw him across the room.

“It’s not Skye’s fault,” Lincoln tells him, which Coulson appreciates, but it’s also largely unnecessary because if Skye hurts someone he’s generally going to assume that she had good reason to do it.

“I assumed that much,” Coulson tells his new recruit, like he must be stupid if he thinks he needs to defend Skye. “Why don’t you explain?”

“She’s in a...receptive period.”

Coulson blinks because that _cannot_ mean what he thinks it means.

“It doesn’t seem like she was very receptive.”

“It’s…”

“It appears that Inhuman women go through a period not unlike…” Simmons trails off and Coulson closes his eyes, grateful that Simmons did not use the word _heat_.

“Inhumans have pon farr,” Hunter tells him, and it’s the first time Coulson notices him, lounging on another gurney with a similarly black eye.

“It’s _not_ pon farr,” Lincoln grouses, as though he’s already said this a hundred times today. “It’s a receptive state. There are pheromone signals that draw men…”

“And you have no control over this?”

“I could have done better,” Lincoln admits. “But I didn’t… I mean, I didn’t _force_ myself on her or anything.”

“It affects humans, too?” Coulson points back to Hunter.

“Oh, no,” Hunter injects. “It was lover boy there got her riled up, I was just an innocent bystander.”

“It’s true,” Simmons tells him. “She’s...it’s bad. Her behavior is erratic and she has a dangerously high fever. She thought it was best that she stay secluded, and she did apologize,” she shoots the last back at Hunter who shrugs like none of this really bothers him anyways.

“Is she…” Coulson doesn’t know what word he’s looking for, doesn’t know a word that he’ll feel comfortable saying _to_ Simmons _about_ Skye _in front of_ Hunter and Lincoln.

“Yes, I believe she is feeling _amorous_ ,” Simmons answers, and he almost smiles.

“Just not towards him.”

“No,” Simmons agrees, and her blush gives away how she’s come to this conclusion that it was the man in question and not just Skye’s state that led to the...strong rejection.

“She didn’t hurt you?”

“No,” Simmons shakes her head, cheeks turning even more pink. “If I had to guess, I would say she’s just feeling...selective.”

“How do we stop it?” He directs the question at Lincoln, who can’t seem to meet his eye.

“Endogenous endorphins should end it.”

“Orgasm,” Simmons butts in with the explanation, managing not to blush too much. “He’s saying that reaching orgasm, even by herself, will...get her hormones back to normal.”

“Does Skye know?”

Simmons nods.

“The trouble is, Director Coulson, that she doesn’t seem to have much interest in self-stimulation.”

He closes his eyes and swallows.

So he’s got to go convince his best agent and resident superhero to masturbate.

Fantastic.

Before he turns to go, though, Simmons stops him.

“It might be smart for you to...keep your distance.”

“You think she’ll hurt me?”

It hadn’t even occurred to him that Skye might react to his presence like she had to Lincoln’s or Hunter’s.

“No, sir,” Hunter laughs. “She’s not going to _hurt_ you.”

“She was...asking for you,” Simmons clarifies.

He blinks twice, unable to really process that information, and then heads towards the cell, feeling everyone’s eyes on his back.

He doesn’t go in, of course, but knocks on the door softly.

“Skye?”

There’s a long silence and then the door opens. He’s surprised by that, had expected to be sent away, no matter what Simmons and Hunter were suggesting.

“Coulson.”

She’s flushed and her eyes are dilated and glassy, all the signs of her high fever, and when she wraps her arms around him she feels hot, too.

“Are you okay?”

Her hand, the hug, the whole room smells like sex, and he can only guess what she’s been doing in here, apparently unsuccessfully. It’s also announced loudly by the two vibrators — one phallic shaped and one wand model plugged into the wall — lying on top of the bed.

(He wonders if they are hers, or if Simmons has procured them for her.)

He pulls back from the hug, sets his hands on her shoulders to try to have a better look at her, but it’s hard because Skye keeps pressing forward, getting closer, putting her hands on his chest.

She’s wearing her pajamas — loose sweatpants that sit low on her hips and a grey SHIELD shirt with a ripped out neck that hangs off one shoulder. The shirt is damp with sweat and clings to her, making it very obvious that she’s not wearing a bra.

And he hates himself for that thought.

Skye is ill, _sick_ , and he’s thinking about her breasts, about seeing her body.

“I need you,” she tells him, and it’s like maybe he’s slipped into a wet dream, which definitely means he should leave. Staying here would be wrong, and he knows it.

He pushes his own desires aside and focuses on the here-and-now, on what Skye needs.

“You need to masturbate, Skye. You need to have an orgasm.”

“Yes,” she agrees, and that was easier than he expected.

Too easy, really.

“Help me, Coulson. Please.”

And for a moment he swears he can see beyond her fevered eyes, see a real plea coming from Skye.

“What do you need?”

“Touch me,” she begs,  _begs_ , and his knees go a little weak.

She actually picks up his right hand and slides it under the bottom of her shirt, up along the skin of her stomach.

“God, Phil, that feels good.”

He groans because it does feel good, because it feels amazing, and because he loves the sound of Skye saying his name.

“You called me Phil,” he breathes the words as his hand slides further up under her shirt, moving of its own volition, now.

Her skin is so soft and warm under his fingertips; he’s never touched anything so perfect.

“You asked me to, remember? You said you wanted me to call you Phil when we were alone.”

A few weeks ago, when he wasn’t really in control of his thoughts _or_ his words.

“I shouldn’t want that.”

His hand encounters the underside of her breast, and he drags his fingers along it as she shudders, presses herself against him.

“Please.”

His left arm curves around her body, holds her as tight against him as he can get while he stretches his fingers until her breast fills his hand.

She moans, a breathy little sound, as he drags his thumb over her nipple.

When she leans in to kiss him, though, he pulls back to dodge the advance — remembers that this isn’t about him, not even about _them_ , it’s about her.

And, _fuck_ , she’s never going to forgive him as it is.

“Sorry,” she tells him, her voice shaking but serious. “I’m _so_ sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry.” He’s the one that should be sorry. “You’ve done nothing wrong,” he whispers, hands safely on her shoulders and not...groping her.

She nods, but dodges his gaze, eyes locked on his tie.

“What can I do, Skye?”

“I want you to touch me,” she repeats. “Touch me while I…”

He nods and backs her towards the bed, where she falls willingly, her hand already disappearing down her sweats. The two vibrators thunk to the floor, forgotten.

Coulson sits to her side, much more gingerly, much more careful, and again slides his hand up her shirt.

She moans when he cups her breast again, and he tailors every move — every pinch, every flick over her nipple — to the noises she makes as her wrist begins to move feverishly under her sweats.

It’s about _her_ , he tells himself, this mantra in his head. Not him.

It’s quickly clear, though, that their arrangement isn’t going to be enough.

“I _can’t_ ,” she whispers, seeming on the verge of tears. It’s a  level of frustration, desperation, that looks foreign on Skye’s face. “Coulson, I _can’t_. It’s not enough.”

He slips his hand off her breast, down and out of her shirt.

“Skye.”

Her eyes are closed, breath coming too fast.

“Skye, look at me.”

She does, opens her eyes and looks up at him as he slides his hand down and into her sweats. She shivers, shivers so he can see all of her skin prickled with gooseflesh, can feel it on the lower part of her belly right before he realizes she’s not wearing panties, either.

“Is this okay?”

“Yes.” She arches her back against the mattress, legs dropped open, making herself as receptive as possible despite her pants.

And he’s imagined this moment before, the first time he would touch her, make her come. God, but he’s imagined this moment — her skin and her panted breaths and the wetness between her thighs.

This is like a perversion of that — her skin covered, her breaths coming from fear as much as real arousal, her wetness a mixture of desperation and sweat.

It’s definitely never been like this in his fantasies, which makes it easy to remember that this is real. And it’s not what he’s ever wanted it to be, but it’s still something done because he loves her.

He hopes she knows that, on some level. That he’d never want to take advantage, would only ever touch her like this out of love.

“Stay with me,” he asks her when her eyes slip closed, and maybe that’s selfish, but he wants her to understand, to be with him, to know. 

When her eyes open, he can see so much in them that he wishes he could understand.

“Phil,” she whispers his name when his index finger slips down across her clit. She arches her hips, but generally seems desensitized to the touch. “Inside.”

He clenches his teeth, repeats his mantra.

 _This is for her_.

With her legs parted as they are, her sweats slip easily down her thighs enough that he’s able to thrust one and then two fingers inside of her, and she finally makes a noise that sounds like it could be good.

“Like that,” she agrees when he starts to move his fingers, her hips working almost as hard as his wrist.

Once he finds the right angle, the right curve, she does most of the work, riding his fingers until he can feel her come — tight and hot and pulsing.

“Coulson,” she grunts his name, calls it out too loudly, and he’s grateful that this room is relatively sound proof.

He stills his hand only when she finally stills her hips, and his fingers are still inside her, his hand still pressed against her, when she looks up at him — breath more normal, eyes no longer glassy, skin back to its usual golden tone.

“Hi,” she whispers, smiling her gorgeous _Skye_ smile at him like maybe this hasn’t royally fucked up anything at all.

When he starts to pull back his hand, though, she grips his wrist, holds him in place.

“ _Skye_.” He means it as a warning, but it comes out as a moan when he feels her body clench around his fingers. Then her hips shift, thrusting up against him.

“ _Phil_.”

He loses sight of his purpose, then, of his mantra that this is for her.

When he begins to thrust his fingers again, to curve them inside of her and drive her to the edge again, it’s at least partly for him, partly because he has dreams about doing this.

She’s so much more responsive this time, so much more expressive — groaning his name and tossing her head on her pillow and then, _god_ , pulling down the neck of her shirt so she can clutch at her breast, work her fingers over the nipple.

He’s so entranced by the sight of her — beautiful now that this is an act of pleasure instead of frustration — that he’s surprised by her hand curving up behind his neck. She clutches there, fingers digging in almost painfully, as she comes apart with her eyes locked on his the whole time.

It’s the hottest thing he’s ever seen, Skye coming from his touch, and he’s not sure whether to be ashamed of his erection or not.

This time, when she stops moving against his hand, her whole body sinks back on the bed; her hand slides from his neck down to his wrist, still holding on.

“Stay with me?”

He nods, tries to swallow even though his throat is too dry.

“I will,” he promises. “I’m going to go get Simmons, first, and get you some water.”

She squeezes his wrist tightly and then lets it go as he rises from the bed.

By the time he and Simmons get back to the cell, she’s fast asleep — he has to wake her up to get her to drink, to let Simmons check that her fever is down and her vitals normal. And then, because he thinks it will be a nicer place to rest, he half carries her to her room and lets her pass out in her own bed.

And maybe because she asked, maybe because he doesn’t want her to wake up alone, maybe because he’s still scared that he’s ruined things, he sits in a chair beside her bed. He doesn’t exactly watch her sleep, but he can’t make himself focus on anything but her, on the pattern of her breathing, on his own fears about what he’s done, on the memory of her coming around his fingers.

When she does finally wake up, she looks over at him and blinks.

“I thought you were going to stay with me.” Her voice is scratchy and dry, so he hands her a bottle of water.

“I did,” he promises. “I’ve been right here.”

He thinks for a minute that she frowns, but it’s just her face as she twists open her water and then downs it.

“Thank you.”

She passes back the empty bottle and sits up in bed, drawing her fingers across her eyes and waking herself up.

There’s a second of awkwardness, where he wonders if she’s going to bring up what happened, but instead she licks her lips, darts her eyes to the bed, and looks back up at him with more alertness — and maybe more distance.

“Tell me about your meeting with Talbot,” she requests, like today has been a normal afternoon.

So he does.

And he feels like he should be more relieved that this hasn’t fucked things up, that they can go back to normal, but there’s a hollowness somewhere in his gut that he can’t quite shake.

 


	3. Truth Serum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coulson & Skye & Truth Serum

“You’ve trained for this, haven’t you?”

He can hear the fear in Skye’s voice, though he can’t see her, bound as she is behind him, out of sight.

They’re back to back in this little stone cell, facing opposite walls, just barely close enough that he’s aware of her presence.

“We trained with sodium pentothal. I think this is stronger.”

It isn’t exactly what he wanted to say, isn’t what will make her feel better. Which means it’s starting to take effect.

She laughs like she knows exactly what happened, the kind of laugh she makes when something is terrifying and she doesn’t know what else to do.

“How are we going to manage this?”

They have a lot of secrets, after all, big ones. Names and personal information of newly powered Inhumans, names worth money to bad people.

He can feel her fear, that somehow she’ll be responsible for the death of some of her people, that Ward will get to them and it will be her fault.

It won't be, of course. It will still be Ward's fault, but he understands the fear and the responsibility she feels.

If he weren’t tied to a chair, he would hug her. As it is, he can barely brush her fingers — dangling between the backs of their two chairs — but they’re covered in thick gloves that function as a power dampener.

Ward has clearly been planning this, down to the last detail.

He focuses, though, on her question. How are they going to manage this?

“We’re going to think about things that aren’t what they want to know.”

And they're not going to think about the fact that Ward has clearly gotten very comfortable with torture.

“Yeah? That’s SHIELD Truth Serum 101 Training?”

“It’s going to get harder to filter your thoughts,” he explains by way of agreement. “So get yourself thinking about things you don’t mind saying.”

“I think I mind saying _anything_ to Ward and his goons.”

“Hmm.”

It’s getting harder to focus already, which means it’s getting easier for someone to direct his thoughts towards things he definitely _doesn’t_ want to talk about.

“Tell me what you remember from the old SHIELD handbook, Skye. Focus on that.”

She read that thing cover to cover so many times, spent so much time picking apart details of it. He remembers her sitting in his office on the Bus reading through it, telling him how much she’d have liked to have had it while doing her Rising Tide blogging.

She does really well, actually, reciting passages — especially the ones she took issue with, ones about secrecy and fraternization.

“I never knew you felt that strongly about anti-fraternization policies,” he tells her as she recites off a passage and then scoffs.

“I didn’t want to have that conversation with you.”

“Why not?”

“You _know_ why not,” she huffs, like she’s terribly annoyed, and he doesn’t really know what that means but he also doesn’t want to press her on it when she’s already upset.

“Tell me about them now,” he requests. “Think about anti-fraternization policies.”

“I think they’re bullshit.”

Blunt even for Skye.

He laughs, can’t help but like her bluntness, same as he can’t help but like most everything about her.

“They’re meant to help. To keep people from getting too emotionally compromised.”

“Do you really think that works?”

“No,” Coulson answers, which isn’t what he wants to say to her. At all. His official position is that fraternization between SHIELD agents can be dangerous, but he can’t make that thought stick in his head.

“I can’t trust an organization that treats personal relationships like they’re dangerous.”

“I know.”

“You do?”

He swallows.

“That’s why I changed things,” he admits.

“Because you agree with me?”

“Because _you_ feel that way,” he corrects her. “I don’t know how I feel, but I don’t want SHIELD to be an organization that _you_ can’t trust.”

“I never knew that,” she whispers after a moment of silence, which he thinks means he’s shocked her, but he doesn’t know what could be so shocking.

“I don’t know why you’re surprised. I do lots of things based on what I think you would want.”

“Even though you’re undecided.”

“I think sometimes anti-fraternization rules are helpful.”

She huffs, like he’s prevaricating, but he’ll stand by that — he will.

"Sometimes having a line between you and another person is beneficial. It helps you stay in control of situations."

"Sometimes it makes situations harder because you're not even allowed to  _talk_ about things that are there already," she counters.

"Maybe those are  _things_ that shouldn't be there." 

“Rules don’t stop you from getting attached to people, Coulson.”

“No, they don’t, but maybe it's enough if they keep you from making it...more.”

“And that’s a good thing?”

 _Yes_ , he tries to think. _Yes it’s a good thing_. Mostly, though, all he can think about is how it’s hard, all the questions he has about whether it’s even true.

Is it a good thing that he’s never felt he could approach her?

“I...I thought so.”

“People can be emotionally compromised by someone they’re not sleeping with, you know.”

“Of course I know. I’ve been emotionally compromised by you since the day we met.”

He closes his eyes and draws a breath. He should be doing better at this, staying more detached. That’s Truth Serum 101. But then, he’s not facing interrogation right now, not exactly calling to mind his training.

“Since the day we met?”

“Skye, please.” He squirms in his chair, uncomfortable with this line of questioning, but he can’t make himself think about anything but her — of the first day he met her.

“You were attracted to me?”

“Are you telling me that you didn’t put on that little red dress specifically to capitalize on my attraction?”

She laughs.

“I did. I wanted on board your plane and I figured I should use all my _resources_.” He can almost hear the way she raises her eyebrows, the flirty little look she would shoot him.

“But I didn’t invite you because of that. I never...Skye, I never…”

“Will you _stop it_?”

He swallows.

“Every time I think we’re getting somewhere, you get all _weird_ about it.”

“I just don’t want you to think that I…”

“I didn’t. I don’t. I thought you were cute, you know. Especially for an older guy in a suit. I flirted with you. You flirted with me.”

He swallows.

“I still think about it, you in Lola in that dress.”

“Still?”

“Your thighs stuck to the seat.”

“And that made an impression?”

“Your bare thighs on Lola’s leather?” He pulls the memory much to clearly, much too vividly to the front of his mind. “Yes, that made an impression.”

There’s a long stretch of silence, and he can hear her chair creak as she moves behind him.

“So how often do you think about my naked thighs on Lola’s leather, then?”

He would swear her voice is husky, low and promising and _aroused_.

“Too often,” he admits, only realizing after it’s come out that he needs to be more careful. “You’re taking advantage of this,” he accuses.

“Yes,” she agrees, “I am. But you’ll never talk about it otherwise.”

“With good reason.”

“And which good reason is that?”

“Skye…” He hisses her name in warning and tugs at his handcuffs, wriggles in his chair, and tries harder to free himself.

“Tell me, Coulson, why are you so weird about talking about...us?”

Her question stops him short.

“Us?”

“You and me,” she clarifies. “Don’t pretend you don’t know, Coulson.”

“Know what?”

She huffs.

“I know you want me, and by now you _have to_ have figured out that I want you.”

His breathing picks up, heart rate gets faster.

“Say that again.”

“What? I know you want me?”

“The other part.”

“I want you.” She says it so matter of fact. “You’d have to be stupid not to know.”

“You can’t want me, not like that.”

“I can’t?”

“I’m old,” he tells her. “Too old for you.”

“Do I get a say in deciding who’s too old for me?”

“You’re so _good._ You’re so good, Skye. Too good for me.”

“So you _are_ stupid.”

He laughs because he doesn’t know what else to do, not when Skye is pushing this _like this_. He’s always thought it’s been him holding things back, but apparently Skye has been holding back, too.

Apparently he’s stupid.

“I really want to kiss you right now,” he tells her because he _really_ wants to kiss her right now.

“I think I like you when you’ve been injected with truth serum, Phil.”

“Because I want to kiss you?”

“Because you _admit_ you want to kiss me. You _always_ want to kiss me.”

“I do?”

“Don’t you?”

He fights against his restraints even harder.

“Are you sure you can’t get out of those gloves?”

They lurch backwards towards each other with more vigor until he’s able to get his cuffed hands on the gloves, feeling up the mechanisms that lock them in place behind her chair.

He grunts in frustration, and then is surprised to feel the gloves themselves vibrating under his fingers.

“You should move your hands,” she warns him, so he slides further away, hops his chair until he topples over two feet across the room.

She groans, sounds like she’s in pain, and Coulson regrets pushing her on this.

“Skye, are you...”

And then he hears the sound of her chair shattering, of her removing the cuffs and gloves.

“I didn’t know I could do that,” she tells him, smiling to herself as she strides across the room and unties him, vibrates his cuffs off.

“What did you do?”

“I’m not totally sure,” she admits, “but I was trying to focus my powers higher instead of through my hands. Or maybe Ward just made a crappy pair of gloves.”

She offers him a hand and helps him up off the ground before dipping him backwards dramatically, like she’s the hero in an old picture, and he thinks it’s actually very romantic.

“I’m going to kiss you now,” she warns him, “and then we’re going to escape.”

“You don’t think we should save the kissing for after the escape?”

“Nope,” she answers, and then she’s kissing him and he’s too entranced by the feel of her mouth to care that much about the escape.

Her lips are firm and soft over his, and he’s surprised at how confident she is about this, how little hesitation there is. He runs his hands up her back to touch her neck, to cling to her as her tongue flicks against his.

“Tell me you want this,” she murmurs against his mouth, and they straighten up a little, so he’s now the taller one.

“You _know_ I want this.”

“Phil,” she sighs his name, and he kisses her again, harder.

“I want this,” he answers. “I want you.”

“Good,” she nods at him, and he’s not sure whether it’s good that he wants her or good that he’s admitting it. Either way, though.

He kisses her until Skye has to push him back, remind him of where they are.

Their escape goes smoothly with Skye leading the charge, and once they’re back on the jet, she kisses him again.

And he’s fought this, fought her, fought his feelings. He’s tried to play the hero and the white knight and the responsible older man.

It feels good, finally, to let her be the hero, to let her kiss him.

It feels good to know that things aren’t going to go back to normal.

  



	4. Asgardian Aphrodisiac

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skye & Coulson & Thor's magic liquor

“What was in that whiskey?”

“It’s Asgardian, so who knows?”

“Mmmhmm,” Skye agrees and leans against him, not so much drunkenly as affectionately. Her nose presses to his shoulder near his neck, and she breathes in deeply like she’s savoring him.

Coulson smiles fondly at his girlfriend — he’s certainly feeling no pain, either.

They’re stumbling back to their sleeping quarters, more than a little lost in a deserted marble-tiled corridor in Odin’s palace. It’s been a long day, capped off with a raucous celebration to celebrate Odin’s rightful return to power, the defeat of evil in the universe, and etc.

Another day’s work, basically.

But all the corridors look frustratingly similar, and their mild inebriation is making it much harder to find their way back.

The way Skye keeps stopping to press her nose to his neck or kiss him isn’t helping, either.

“Is Thor’s whiskey catching up to your super metabolism?”

She’s discovered that alcohol has very little effect on her now, so when Thor pulled out his magic whiskey stash _not meant for humans_ , Skye had taken him up on it and spent a lot of the evening doing shots with Captain Rogers and Thor.

(Which didn’t bother him or anything, of course it didn’t, just because they both look much more like the kind of men Skye should be interested in. He’s not that insecure. Mostly.)

“I don’t feel drunk,” she tells him, “just…”

She leans in and presses her nose to his neck again.

“Skye?”

There’s another deep inhalation, just beneath his ear, and the rush of air makes him shiver, his skin suddenly covered with goosebumps.

“God, Coulson, you smell amazing.”

A laugh gets stuck in his throat at that.

“Do I?”

“ _Yes_.” She breathes in again and then kisses the side of his neck before parting her lips and sucking the skin just under his ear. “You taste amazing, too.”

He swallows against a current of arousal, but when she goes in to kiss his neck again, he stops her.

“I think our room is this way,” he points to the left, but finds himself pressed back against one of the columns lining the hallway.

And he’s already hard, already verging on desperate _want_ , but the vision Skye makes — gorgeous, longing, and trailing her hand down his tie — makes it worse.

“This dress isn’t the best for this,” she tells him, and he has no idea what _this_ is, but he _really_ likes the dress, offered up by Lady Sif for the celebration and to get Skye out of her torn field uniform.

It’s red and silky and diaphanous, draping and hanging and shimmering on her body like magic instead of fabric. She looks like a goddess, like a _really sexy_ goddess, and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t distracted by it all evening. (Especially the way the fabric is almost sheer down her back and where it clings below her bellybutton, the way he can tell she must be completely bare underneath.)

“What isn’t the dress good for?”

She lets her hand drift from his tie, down his stomach, until she’s cupping him through his slacks.

“Having you up against the wall,” she answers, and he can’t quite stop himself from grinning at her.

Her hand feeling out the shape of him in his slacks, Skye leans in and kisses his neck again, pressing her whole body against his. It feels incredible, and he melts a bit.

“Do you taste this good everywhere?”

She asks the question quietly beneath his ear, leaves him shuddering against her.

And he should put a stop to this, he knows he should.

He doesn’t.

Instead, he grabs her hand and tugs her with him behind the row of columns lining the deserted hallway, so they’re hidden in shadow. There, he pushes her up against the back of the same column and sinks to his knees.

“Shit, Coulson.”

She releases a slow, shaky breath and licks her lips.

“You look amazing in red,” he tells her, pulled back just enough to appreciate the view of her. Even in shadow, the silky material has a sheen to it that draws his eyes along her curves, and he hopes Sif knows that they’re taking the garment when they leave.

“Red like Lola.”

“Yes,” he agrees.

“I chose this one because I know you think red is sexy.

He smiles and presses his face to the dress low on her belly.

“I think _you’re_ sexy. No matter what you wear.”

It makes her grin, and then she runs her fingers through his hair, a light scratch of fingernails against his scalp.

“You always know what to say,” she tells him, and he shakes his head at that because if he always knew what to say, they’d have been _together_ a year ago. At least.

So he doesn’t answer, just presses a kiss to her lower belly — against the sheerest part of her dress — and lets his hands drift down the skirt until he’s touching her bare ankles.

Her breath comes harder and faster as he begins to lift the layers of her long skirt — he gets it, why she thinks it would be bad for this — but it doesn’t take him a minute to have it pulled up and tucked around her waist.

And he was right, she’s not wearing anything underneath.

He pauses because he loves this moment, the stillness and anticipation just before things get desperate, and he savors it even as he pushes her backwards and parts her thighs.

“Coulson,” she whimpers, and he moves slowly and deliberately as he picks up her leg to drape it over his shoulder, barely noticing when her sandal slips off and hits the ground. “God, Phil, hurry up.”

Coulson smiles at her, not a little evil, and turns his head to kiss the inside of her thigh, lips working slowly upwards as she tries to grind herself closer to him.

“You’re so wet,” he whispers when his tongue encounters liquid arousal on her inner thigh.

“Uh huh,” she agrees, and her breath is coming too fast.

His nose finally brushes against her, and as she moans and tilts her hips, he can see the tension in every line of her body. Her hands clench and unclench, making fists by her sides.

“Are you okay, Skye?”

She looks like she’s trying to control herself, her powers.

“Yes,” she nods. “I’m not…” She stops clenching her hands. “I can _feel_ you,” she tells him, and he doesn’t even know what that means, but it sounds incredibly hot. His cock throbs behind his zipper just at the words, at her voice as she says it — that she can _feel_ him.

“Feel me?”

“Yes, you’re…” She swallows. “I can feel your vibrations. It’s stronger than normal.”

She sucks in a deep breath, and he can see her nipples standing out against the red fabric that covers her chest.

He figures she means to say that she’s hypersensitive, and in response, he blows a stream of cold air against her clit — barely exposed with her hips tilted as they are — and she moans and throws her head back against the column.

“Fuck,” he hears her whimper to herself, so he does it again.

She’s already writhing against the wall by the time he touches his tongue to her, softly so as not to overstimulate. The taste is different than usual, almost sweet, and he considers that for all of ten seconds until he feels her begin to throb under his tongue as she whimpers above him.

It’s such a tiny orgasm, like a prelude more than the real thing, but he pulls his tongue back for a moment so as not to overstimulate her.

“Don’t stop,” she pants, which was mostly unnecessary since he wasn’t planning on stopping. She needs more than one on a normal day, and when she’s wound up this tight there’s no way that was enough.

He’s firmer with his tongue as he continues, and he can’t tell if Skye comes again or _keeps_ coming, but she’s almost wild with it.

Coulson has to keep a hard grip on her thigh and her hip, holding her against the column and open to his mouth, as she tries to just grind against his face.

And there are so many factors that make this a horrible idea. His knees hurt in this position — kneeling on the marble floor. It’s ridiculously public. He can barely breathe, especially when her hand lands on the back of his head.

He's so aroused by everything about her, though — her need, her desire, her voice, her body, the taste of her. She fills his senses, and he loses the will to care about anything else.

It’s like just the taste of her makes him more and more aroused, more than he’s ever been in his life.

He’s not even sure how much time has passed when she uses her grip on his hair to tug him upwards, until he’s dropped her leg from his shoulder to stand, leaning against her on shaking knees.

Her lips latch onto his neck, and she sucks hard enough that he knows it’s going to leave marks all the way up to his ear. He should really care about that, about what everyone is going to say tomorrow, but he can’t make himself think that far ahead.

Instead, he gathers himself enough to kiss her, wet and needy as she tastes herself on him.

She’s sucking on his tongue when she drops a hand between them, and he feels vibrations against his cock, already painfully hard behind his zipper.

And she’s never done this before, never used her powers on him like this.

He has no idea why not.

It’s like his whole spine, his whole brain, lights up with it.

“Fuck, Skye,” he breathes, whole body shaking.

“Too much?”

He laughs and trails kisses along her jaw towards her ear; he can’t get enough of his mouth on her.

“You’re going to make me come,” he whispers under her ear before trailing his tongue there, and she tastes unbelievably sweet here, too — even the salt of her sweat only enhances how sweet she tastes.

It makes him harder, impossibly harder, almost painfully harder. (And if he weren’t so aroused, he might be able to put two and two together, to connect the taste of her to his desire.)

“Not yet,” she agrees, backing off on the vibrations and instead unzipping his slacks.

He’s so hard that it’s difficult to maneuver him out of his open fly, and he grunts against the pinch of his zipper, against the feel of her hands on his almost-too-sensitive flesh.

And then she lifts a leg up to his hip and guides him to her entrance, to push inside.

She feels almost too hot around him in his over-sensitive state, like he’s being burned alive but begging for more.

When she wraps both legs around his waist, he presses her harder to the column, presses further inside, and they both groan.

“Oh _fuck_ , Coulson,” she whispers against his ear. “I can feel you. You’re…”

She clenches around him, almost painfully tight around his cock.

“You feel my vibrations?”

She nods, rubs her face against his neck.

“You feel my vibrations inside of you?”

And he’s been inside of her, bare cock where he’s had it before plenty of times, but something about the idea of it — of her feeling him inside of her — strikes him as erotic in a way it never has.

“Yes,” she agrees, a desperate little whimper.

He pulls out and pushes back inside, a thrust that he knows is too hard — too rough — but he can’t seem to help himself.

“Fuck,” she whimpers, “ _Harder_.”

He groans and begins a pounding rhythm, fucking her up against the column like maybe the world is ending, like maybe this is their last chance, and she responds in kind.

It’s fast — at least he thinks it’s fast — grinding together until Skye’s head is thrown back against the column and he’s pulsing inside of her. And it’s good, incredibly good, but it’s also not nearly enough.

When she drops her feet to the ground, Skye looks nearly spent, but Coulson is still painfully hard, still pressing needy kisses to her neck.

“Shit, Coulson. Did you have that whiskey, too?”

“I had _you_ ,” he answers, trailing his tongue down her neck.

She nods, like maybe that makes sense, and then turns them around so he’s the one with his back to the column and Skye is on her knees.

Every sensation is extra sharp, so magnified that it hurts. He swears he can feel the individual whorls of her fingerprints against his cock, and it’s too much. Way too much.

“Skye,” he groans her name, and she seems to get it, drops her hands to her sides as she sucks the tip of his cock gently into her mouth.

It’s unbelievably hot, still _almost_ too much, but the pleasure outweighs any potential discomfort as she starts to move.

He can’t make himself be good, though, can’t stop himself from running his fingers through her hair, from guiding the pace of her mouth over him.

She moans, a good sound like it’s not really a problem, and he just watches as his cock disappears past her lips.

He thinks it’s the visual that pushes him over the edge.

There’s hardly any ejaculate when he comes again, but it’s still good — at least for the first twenty seconds, at least until he realizes that it isn’t going to be enough.

“Skye,” he groans her name desperately, but when she leans forward to take him back into her mouth, it’s too much.

He whimpers, a helpless little sound.

“Oh, Coulson,” she sighs, but pulls back so she’s not touching him.

Which is when the vibrations start.

She lets one hand hover over his cock while the other presses between his legs, and it’s not exactly like a vibrator, actually much better than that, and he can’t fucking believe they’ve never played with this before.

“So good,” he whimpers at her, and it is, it’s _so_ good — it’s the stimulation he needs without the extra sensations, and he loses himself in the buildup, in the warmth that grows in the base of his spine.

“Coulson,” she whispers his name and he opens his eyes to look down at her, at Skye taking care of him, at Skye taking care of him with her fucking superpowers.

“Fuck,” he grunts as he suddenly feels close, really close.

He comes like that, comes while losing himself in the depths of Skye’s eyes, and it’s like she knows exactly what to do, how to back off the vibrations, how to bring him down until he feels nearly boneless, like he might just slide down to the floor to join her.

Instead, she stands up and kisses him, sweet and gentle, as he finally starts to soften.

“Next time I won’t have the weird Asgardian super liquor,” she promises, and he almost has the energy to laugh.

“Maybe just less,” he suggests as she nuzzles into his shoulder, snickering under her breath.

He kisses her, deeper now, as he feels more like himself.

“Let’s find our room,” Skye suggests, smoothing out her skirt to cover her like she hasn’t been doing very inappropriate things in a semi public space.

“That sounds good,” he agrees. When he goes to tug her up against him in another hug, she holds back and very carefully tucks him back into his pants. It’s hard not to frown — he’s still ridiculously sensitive and the cotton rubbing up against him borders on unpleasant.

“You can take them off soon,” she promises, and he nods. “I think our bed has silk sheets.”

“That’ll feel nice,” he agrees, running a hand down her arm.

“You wanna cuddle me in silk sheets, Coulson?” She says it like it’s maybe a joke, like something he might be embarrassed of, but it sounds completely perfect — exactly what he wants.

“Yeah,” he smiles at her, takes her hand, and pulls them down the hallway he’s pretty sure takes them where they want to go.

“I get to be the little spoon, though,” Skye calls it.

Coulson scoffs and bumps her shoulder with his.

“It’s my turn, and you know it.”

  
  



End file.
